Governor Hogan & Fair Maps Maryland Get Cheesy With Gerry’s Partisan Pizza
Pizza Truck Visits Downtown Annapolis on National Tour

ANNAPOLIS, MD (October 29, 2021)—Governor Larry Hogan today joined Ellie Collinson, President of RepresentUS and Jim Brochin of Fair Maps Maryland for a supreme visit to the Gerry’s Partisan Pizza food truck in Downtown Annapolis. Gerry’s Partisan Pizza is an initiative from RepresentUs, the non-partisan anti-corruption organization, that works to spread awareness of gerrymandering across the country, like spreading a hearty tomato sauce across fresh dough. In addition to free pizza, Gerry’s provides information to citizens in gerrymandered districts to show how rigged maps undermine democracy.

“Giving out free pizza might be a cheesy idea, but redistricting is a critically important issue any way you slice it,” said Governor Hogan. “I would like to thank Fair Maps Maryland and RepresentUs for partnering together to bring Gerry’s Partisan Pizza to Annapolis to spread awareness about the negative effects of gerrymandering and the opportunity that we have this year to finally have a fair and transparent redistricting process.”

“Using pizza, we are showing how politicians slice up districts to their own advantage, so they can get a larger piece of the pie. The people of Maryland deserve a redistricting process that is fair, transparent and accountable,” said Ellie Collinson, President of RepresentUs Education Fund. “Here in Maryland and in red states and blue states around the country, we are at risk of career politicians picking their voters in back rooms.”

“If democracy was a pizza, gerrymandering would be the pineapple,” said Jim Brochin, member of Fair Maps Maryland Board of Directors. “Marylanders don’t want their communities sliced up by gerrymandering any more than they want half-baked maps pushed through the process. Fair Maps Maryland will continue to take advantage of every opportunity to educate Marylanders about our state’s shameful history of gerrymandering and the current redistricting process.”

Following a three-day pop-up pizza shop demonstration in Austin, RepresentUs launched the two-week food truck tour that will travel to key states where politicians control the once-a-decade redistricting process. The truck will also make stops in Greensboro, N.C., Raleigh, N.C., Tallahassee, Fla., Orlando, Fla., Harrisburg, Pa., Pittsburgh, Pa., Madison, Wis. and Appleton, Wis. The truck uses fun gimmicks, like napkins that explain gerrymandering and pizza in the shape of gerrymandered districts.

Redistricting efforts by Maryland’s dueling commissions have been heating up in recent weeks as both the Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission and the 2021 Legislative Redistricting Advisory Committee have held a series of public/virtual hearings to gather public feedback. However, while the independent and nonpartisan Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission, created through Executive Order by Governor Hogan, has publicly released its proposed maps, the 2021 Legislative Redistricting Advisory Committee, created by the majority-Democrat General Assembly and chaired by former gerrymanderer-in-chief Karl Aro, has so far refused to release any maps publicly, despite repeated promises by legislative leadership that it would do so.

Last week, Fair Maps Maryland submitted an official Public Information Act request to obtain documents and records related to the 2021 Legislative Redistricting Advisory Committee. Just as Marylanders have yet to hear anything from the committee about their proposed maps, Fair Maps Maryland has yet to hear back from legislative leadership regarding the request.